Prepping for College Students Part 4

The final part in my Prepping for College Students series will deal with the other supplies that one would need in a disaster-type event. Food and water are essential to any prepper's supplies but you also need a way to defend them, a get-home from college plan, and plenty of first-aid supplies.

When I say defense I'm not talking about starting a war, but in my opinion, any and all citizens should own firearms for home and personal defense. Shotguns are great for home defense because of their deadliness at close range, and their low velocity compared to rifles. A good used Remington 870 with a short barrel could be purchased for around $200. This would be my suggestion for a primary home dense weapon. A good side arm is also great to have for the concealability and to have a firearm to carry with you. Hi-Point makes some good handguns that can be purchased new for less than $200. Shotgun and handgun ammo is cheap compared to rifle ammo, and a few hundred rounds for each weapon would be a must. For a college student wanting some added protection for their food storages back at home, a good shotgun and side arm should do the trick.

The next and possibly most important question is "How do you plan on getting home from college?" This is where your get-home bag comes into play. I made a more in depth post back in January about Get Home Bags. All bags are different, but all serve the same purpose; providing you with the supplies you need to get home from college in the event of a disaster. Worst case scenario is you would have to trek it on foot. If this is possible for you, then you would want to keep a good pair of hiking boots, change of clothes, some food bars, water, a compass, map, and other things you think might help you get home in a backpack, ready to go at all times. My Get Home Bag might contain a lot of stuff I might not absolutely need, but I can fit it all in my large ALICE pack so I'm fine with it. Like I said before, you want to tailor your Get Home Bag to fit your specific needs, and you can use mine as an idea of what you would need.

First aid seems to be an important part of prepping a lot of people overlook. First Aid supplies are essential to your total prepping supplies, and can be had for very cheap. There are tons of resources for creating your own first aid kits , and there are also lots of pre-made kits you can purchase for nearly just as cheap. These kits can be purchased from Amazon for less than $30 and include all you need to treat your minor and even moderate injuries.

There are also other supplies that would come in handy in the event of an emergency or disaster. In the event the electricity goes out, you would want to make sure you have the flashlights and batteries stored that you need. I learned this lesson from the Ice Storm that happened earlier this year. Flashlights won't do you any good without batteries to power them. You can purchase batteries in bulk from lots of places including Meritline.com. If you catch them on sale, you can get them for around $.30 a piece. They also sell nice LED flashlights that use very low power and provide a really bright beam of light. A few LED flashlights, a LED headlamp, and a LED tent light will allow you to work and function at night after the power goes off. Candles are also important and emergency candles can be purchased for really cheap. Propane lanterns are also a great way to light your home in the dark of night. Another thing people overlook is hygiene products, specifically toilet paper. I know hygiene would be one of the least important things to worry about in a disaster, but we all still have to wipe our butts and toilet paper will be a valuable commodity if a disaster struck. You want to keep a good supply of toilet paper, toothpaste, soap, and toothbrushes. If you are visually impaired like me, a supply of contact lenses and a few pair of extra glasses will allow you to function if the optometrist isn't available. Communication is also important and a few hand held radios that accept the batteries you already have stored would be a good way to keep in touch with family if you had to leave the house for something.

There are still lots of things I haven't mentioned, but this is just a guide to show college students that even on a small budget they can prepare and create themselves an insurance policy against the coming economic collapse. In this series I have discussed and provided ideas for food storage, water storage, and the necessary supplies that would go along with your food and water stores. Anyone can prepare, there are no excuses. It just takes time and patience by getting a little here and there and before you know it, you're prepared!

Prepping for College Students Part 1
Prepping for College Students Part 2
Prepping for College Students Part 3

Prepping for College Students Part 3

Part 3 of this series will review the importance of water in a survival situation. Water is MORE important than food; you can go a while without food, but wouldn't survive a few days without a clean water source. Storing water for a student might seem like a daunting task but it's very simple and not very expensive. Most won't have the ability to store 55 gallon drums in or around their homes, so smaller, storable containers will be the best way to store it.

Along with the 3 month storable food supply, students should move towards also having a 3 month water supply on hand. Wal-Mart sells Reliance 7 gallon Aqua-Tainers that are BPA free and safe for water storage. Sam's Club sells the 4 gallon water jugs for water dispensers and these are good to buy and store up also. Aside from buying containers you can save your plastic juice jugs to clean and fill with water for storage, I fill up all my juice jugs for storage, just don't use milk jugs. Tap water doesn't need any additives to be storable, it comes out of the faucet ready to be stored for up to a year and still be clean and drinkable. In a survival situation one should have at least a gallon of water each day for drinking and cooking. Water is important with your supply of dried foods because they lack the water content that other foods contain. Staying hydrated means staying alive whether you're caught in an ice storm with no running water or in a SHTF type situation.

We take water for granted because all we have to do is turn a knob and it flows right out. The running water is dependent on electric pumps to get it to your kitchen sink, but in a blackout those pumps would fail and water wouldn't be available. The majority of the population doesn't have access to water from a well or stream, so keeping plenty on hand is key. For 3 months one would need around 90 gallons of water to have a gallon per day per person. As long as the water is put in a location that doesn't get below freezing it will be ok to store there. If you don't have the inside space, your crawlspace underneath your house is a good place. Our crawlspace in KY usually doesn't get below freezing in the winter so your stored water should be safe, any further North and I'm not sure. Even it would freeze, you could just leave a space at the top for expansion. It's important to also remember to rotate your water every 6 months to a year, the same with your stored food supply.

Not only storing on hand water and food, having a way to filter water that you could collect is also important. There are lots of good water filters on the market including Berkley and other brands. You want one that is either hand pumped or gravity filtered, so you won't have to rely on electricity. I opted for the Katadyn Combi water filter. It is a well made backpacking filter that features a hand pump and a ceramic filter that lasts 13,000 gallons. These will filter a liter per minute and would be great for a survival situation. If you had to you could probably find a water source, and filter it to make it drinkable.


Prepping for College Students Part 1
Prepping for College Students Part 2
Prepping for College Students Part 4

Prepping for College Students Part 2

In part 2 of the "Prepping for College Students" series, I'm going to focus on the 3 month food supply for the student living at home. It's impractical for the average student to store pounds of rice, beans, or other bulk food items in buckets in their parent's home, and not to mention expensive. The best plan that I could come up with was to stock up on things like small quantities of beans and rice, canned soups, chili, fruits and veggies, noodles and other cheap items. A couple weeks worth of food is better than nothing, and I know ideally we would all like to have at least a year's worth but again we have to look at what's practical for a student still living at home. I decided that having a 3 month food supply would be best for a student still living at home, and I feel that a 3 month supply will put anyone, student or not, in a great position facing these tough economic times.

A 3 month supply of food needs to be easy on the wallet, and include a variety of meals that are quick and easy to prepare. Below is a list of food, the current prices, the total servings, and amount of the foods. This is to serve as a guide for someone else who is looking to put together a similar kit. You can easily get by for 3 months with this food by combining and creating meals. The canned soups are a complete meal and could be ate with crackers, the ramen noodles with spaghetti sauce, or the oats with sliced apples. This supply includes foods that can be prepared easily with water and heat. It is very complete and includes 3 full meals for 90 days, and could be stretched and rationed to last a possible 120 days. The price is very low being a little more than $200; you can't buy a storable 3 month food supply for that price anywhere.

This list was made out of things that I like and that I wouldn't mind eating for 3 months. Your personal supply needs to be made up of foods that you eat on a daily basis. This will ensure that you have food that you enjoy and that you won't have to try beans for the first time the day you really need them. Canned soups, fruits, vegetables, and meats are ideal for a short term food supply. Dried rice, beans, and noodles are also great and not to mention very cheap. These items store well, and have at least a year shelf life. It's important to be familiar with your food supply, and have an idea of what foods would go together. This way you can check your recipe sheet, get your ingredients, and throw a meal together if you didn't have a lot of time to be cooking and preparing. There are some food specific items that would go with your supply such as a heat source for cooking, can opener, utensils, cookware, recipe hard copies, and kitchen conversion charts. Shown below is a few pictures of these food supply gadgets that can be clicked to the original album. The can opener is an OXO Smooth Edge Can Opener (link in Amazon slideshow) and cuts without any sharp edges and leaves a lid that can be put back on for a decent seal, just like the Pampered Chef one. The Sterno alcohol stoves will last 2 1/4 hour a piece and can be used to cook, and the alcohol stoves with the denatured alcohol is also for cooking food indoors. A few other good things to have are measuring cups, a funnel set, and something to store food like plastic containers and zip lock bags.



Most people would already have these items in their kitchen or parent's kitchen but if not they would be very helpful when preparing your food preps and measuring out each serving to make sure you weren't using too much. For about $2 a day, a student can have a good size food supply and will sleep better at night knowing that you have your bases covered concerning food. This would all fit in a couple large plastic containers, inside your closet after some spring cleaning. I'm sure everyone could spare a little space to make room for your insurance policy. In later parts I will discuss water storage options, staying warm, and protecting and defending your food supplies.

CookBookPeople.com - Kitchen Conversion Chart

Prepping for College Students Part 1
Prepping for College Students Part 3
Prepping for College Students Part 4

Prepping for College Students Part 1

I'm going to start a series titled "Prepping for College Students." It will be a guide for a prepper in college that is just getting started. I haven't read much about college students prepping but hopefully this will show some on the fence how easy and cheap it really is. Prepping when you're in college and still living at home is a lot different than prepping if you own your own home. It makes a big difference when deciding how to prep, and making the decision on what to buy. After lots of research and countless hours on the internet, I started making my prep item purchases and over the course of a couple months, built up what I think is a good insurance policy for things to come. Most college students are too involved in meaningless and useless activities to worry about prepping or even the economy for that matter. But there are some students out there that are wanting to prep, but don't see how they can do it, or how they can finance their preps. The good news is that buying a few preps is really cheap and by not eating out, or not buying a bunch of crap you already have, you could have the money to buy a good amount of preps by working a part time job.

I started prepping with little direction in where I wanted to go, and how much I wanted to get for myself. Ideally, I would like to have 5 years of food, water, thousands of rounds of ammo, multiple guns...you get the picture. The problem of being in college is that you A. don't have a lot of disposable income, and B. Don't have your own place to store these items. I decided that my best bet would be to secure a 3 month supply of food and water for myself. All the food would be fairly easy to prepare, needing only heat or water to be ready to eat. It would need to be easily storable, with long shelf lives. Rice, beans, canned goods, and other dried foods filled my lists of what I wanted to buy. As I was finding out, these foods that are storable and long lasting are really the cheapest foods you can buy. Junk food is the most expensive, so when making out a list of food preps, bulk and canned foods are the cheapest and best to get.

Three months of food honestly won't take up that much space. I'm sure everyone has a closet in their room back at home that is full of junk. First you must clear the space to put your food stores. About 6 months ago I went through all my junk and took it all to the salvation army. Anything of value I sold on ebay for extra cash. This is the first step because you have to have a place to store your supplies. Next if you don't have the money or a job, then get a part time job. I work part time and before I woke up to what's going on I wasted most of my money on clothes and gadgets. Since then I have stopped spending a dime on eating out, any additional clothes, shoes, or gadgets. This might not sound like much but over the course of a couple months this will really add up. You will be surprised how much prep items you can buy just by saving the money you would spend at Wendy's, Burger King or American Eagle.

So you've got your space cleared out, and your money saved up. How much money would you need? I will get into more detail in upcoming parts of this series, but for 3 months of food alone I only spent $200. This includes some extra things that will add additional taste and variety into the diet if I had to solely rely on my food storage. My 3 month supply is very complete, and with rationing and saving, I could easily stretch it to 4 months or even more. In a survival situation, you can't rely on any outside forces to support you or help you. You're going to need warmth in the winter/nighttime, a way to cook/heat the food, and a source of light in the dark. The basic human needs are food, water and shelter. I'm going to cover the basics through this series. I plan on bugging in at my parents house because it's where my preps are and I have nowhere else to go. There are many people in this situation and it's possible for us to prepare also. You can't stay in your dorm so getting home and having the means to survive is important.

Prepping for College Students Part 2
Prepping for College Students Part 3
Prepping for College Students Part 4